CA fears the west after Thunder's quiet start

Andrew Wu, Daniel Lane

SYDNEY THUNDER'S poor performances on and off the field are alarming Cricket Australia, which is becoming concerned by the fortunes of a franchise in one of the country's largest growth corridors.

CA executive general manager Mike McKenna said the Thunder's progress was ''nowhere near it'', while Big Bash League manager Anthony Everard said the team had not met CA's expectations. The Thunder are on a nine-game losing streak stretching over a year and have drawn meagre crowds of 7413 and 6412 at the 83,500-capacity ANZ Stadium this season, well down on their average of nearly 18,500 from last season.

The franchise is aiming for a crowd of about 10,000 on Friday night against Brisbane but that is still well down on the average of 17,000 to 20,000 CA deems a pass mark. While crowds are down so far across the competition, which started a week earlier this season, the issue is more pressing for western Sydney's Thunder, who are integral to CA's aim of winning a new generation of fans with the revamped Twenty20 league.

''We've been disappointed with the crowds for their first two home games,'' Everard said. ''The whole reason for the Big Bash League is to attract new audiences to the game and, in that respect, we think the Sydney Thunder probably got as good, if not a better opportunity than the other teams, given where they are based. But that doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't happen automatically. We have to work hard to understand what is it the fans are looking for in that team and make sure the product … is appealing to them.

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''That will be a part of our review at the end of the season and if we need to make changes, we won't hesitate to do so.''

McKenna stopped short of describing the Thunder as the weakest club but said they were the ''poorest-performing franchise''.

''The Thunder with where they are at the moment, would acknowledge both on and off the field results are not achieving what they have set themselves,'' McKenna said. ''There's a fair bit of room for growth out there and we're nowhere near it at the moment. We want to see the Thunder doing well. The two Sydney teams and two Melbourne teams are a very important part of the success of the league over the long term.''

The Thunder must compete with the AFL's Greater Western Sydney and the A-League's Western Sydney Wanderers for a slice of the sporting dollar in their patch. Although the culture of membership is foreign to cricket, the Thunder are languishing with just 1131 members in their second season - the lowest of the eight teams.

The figure is well down on the 10,000-plus members GWS attracted in their first season when they collected the wooden spoon and started rank outsiders in all games.

''If GWS can land out there in really hostile territory and put on 10,000 members in a reasonably short period of time and have the off-field success they're having there's absolutely no reason why Thunder can't do extremely well out there,'' McKenna said.

The Thunder have been comfortably beaten in each of their four games this season and are rated $201 long shots by bookmakers to win this season's title, making it even harder to raise enthusiasm among fickle fans. ''What they need to be is competitive, you have to be able to start the season on an even footing with everyone else, you've got to be even money across the field,'' McKenna said. ''If you go into the start of the season and you're not in great shape, it makes it pretty hard - and 0-3 makes it even harder.''

Encouragingly for the Thunder, the Melbourne Renegades are unbeaten this season and second favourite to win after finishing seventh last summer.

Thunder boss John Dyson said the busy pre-Christmas period had hurt his team's drawing power and warned it would not be until the new year that attendances would improve.

''We're still very close to Christmas and we're asking western Sydney to come out on the 28th and the 30th - if you've had a hard financial year or a heavy Christmas, that's a big financial ask,'' Dyson said. ''When January comes around, the crowds will improve.''